With their first-round pick in Saturday\u2019s 2026 MLB Draft, the Boston Red Sox selected UNC shortstop Jake Schaffner.<\/p>\n
The Red Sox took Schaffner 20th overall, 55 slots above his No. 75 ranking on MLB\u2019s Top 250 Draft prospects list.<\/p>\n
A 6-foot-2 left-handed hitter out of Janesville, Wisconsin, Schaffner boasts impressive bat-to-ball skills. He displayed little power potential in college, though, hitting just nine home runs in 171 games.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile he won\u2019t be a slugger, he\u2019s hitting the ball harder than ever this spring and could produce 10-12 homers annually with a healthy amount of doubles,\u201d noted MLB Pipeline\u2019s scouting report.<\/p>\n
Schaffner began his college career with two seasons at North Dakota State before transferring to UNC. Facing higher-level opponents at UNC didn\u2019t hamper Schaffner, who batted .356 with a .552 slugging percentage in in 68 games this year and continued to display strong bat-to-ball skills. He collected 96 hits, 19 doubles, eight trips, six home runs, 85 runs and 50 RBI, drew 45 walks to his 32 strikeouts, received 17 hit-by-pitches, and stole 26 bases in 29 attempts.<\/p>\n
At shortstop this year, Schaffner recorded 94 putouts, 141 assists and made three errors. Evaluators describe his arm as average, and could therefore see him moving to second base down the road.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a rangy and extremely reliable defender at shortstop, though his arm likely will dictate a move to second base in pro ball,\u201d MLB Pipeline assessed. \u201cHe has below-average to fringy pure arm strength that plays as average because he has a knack for running through balls and using his momentum to create carry on his throws.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With their first-round pick in Saturday\u2019s 2026 MLB Draft, the Boston Red Sox selected UNC shortstop Jake Schaffner.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":749167,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2375],"tags":[5,141,48,2542,46459,4,1586,89,2543,4863],"class_list":["post-749166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boston-red-sox","tag-baseball","tag-boston","tag-boston-red-sox","tag-bostonredsox","tag-jake-schaffner","tag-mlb","tag-mlb-draft","tag-red-sox","tag-redsox","tag-unc"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116903124910559674","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/749166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=749166"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/749166\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/749167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=749166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=749166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=749166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}